PT The Jar Jar Binks Appreciation Thread

I think kids who grow up watching Jar Jar will still like him later because he was apart of thier childhood. Atleast thats how I feel, his antics were funny. And if not thats ok because he was made meant for kids anyway. Comic relief for them in a serious movie.

 

I liked Jar Jar's antics when I was younger but most of them are pretty bad now.
Get wit the one liners and funny banter!

 

Great article about Jar Jar.

My favorite Gungan

 

When do the droids use slapstick in TPM and AOTC? I'll admit that ROTS has the Super Battle Droid scene, but the droids were never used for slapsitck in the first two films.

 

Thanks for the correction Darth_Downunder , there were two burps in ROTJ .
As for the slapstick :
The only time the Battle Droids have really been used for slapstick/comedy was in ROTS with Super Battle Droids and you could say later in the film with the MagnaGuard on the ground on Utapau .The first time Battle Droids have been extensively used as slapstick was in the Clone Wars series .

Jo

 

To add to that -- WARNING: Longer, scholastic read.

http://www.forcecast.net/story/blog/The_Case_For_Jar_Jar_134218.asp

 

we live in a very cynical mean spirited world these days, which only makes me like jar jar more.

 

This explains pretty much everything.

 

Are fart jokes inherently less dignified than burp jokes? Fascinating, I never knew.

What about a character falling into a giant trash heap and loudly complaining about the smell? I guess that's the height of comedy in comparison, is it?

Oh yeah, and then in the next movie, that same character loudly complains about how smelly tauntauns are. Han Solo is really really preoccupied with how stinky things are, and it never fails to get a laugh out of OT purists.

After all, this isn't kiddie-level Jar Jar humor. This is sophisticated humor, about smelly smells that smell bad.

 

"Steady. Steady." still cracks me up. I've loved this character since May 19th, 1999.

 

I like the understated appropriateness of Jar Jar's exclamation of "How wude!" after being told that Watto has placed hidden explosives inside Anakin and his mother's bodies to keep them from running away. I actually think it's one of the funniest moments in any of the six films, simply because of the sheer inhuman horror of the thing that is so brashly being made light of. Sometimes that's when comedy is at its best, like the moment in Episode III where Anakin and Obi-Wan's climactic duel to the death is accidentally interrupted by a bewildered worker droid who takes one look at what is going on and then promptly floats away in the opposite direction.

 

Yes they are. Hard to say why, but you'll notice that burp jokes are not uncommon within family sitcoms for example. You'll rarely find blatant fart jokes in a family program. Someone burping at the dinner table = ok. Someone loudly farting = outrage. Don't blame me, I don't make the rules.

No offence but that's among the more feeble PT defenses I've heard in a while. Firstly Han & the gang were in a garbage compactor. An inherently rank & foul place. It would almost be strange for someone not to acknowledge the offensive smell. In any case it wasn't some kind of lame pun or childish gag. It was sarcastically having a go at Leia for her idea. Likewise when you've just sliced open a dead animal & its guts & innards have graphically spilled out in front of you. Here Han in a vaguely humorous way is verbalising his disgust, which is exactly what the audience is feeling after seeing that image. In both of these cases the humor is regarding an important plot occurrence. It's also to relieve some tension in situations where our heroes are in serious danger.

In contrast JarJar casually walking along, stepping in **** (complete with squelching poo sound effect) & exclaiming "icky icky goo!" is just a pointless, gratuitous turd joke aimed at 5 year olds. It serves literally no other purpose other than as an awful kindergarten level gag. It would be like 3PO standing in bantha **** while walking away from the escape pod in ANH & shouting "oh no, yuck, pooey poo!". How hilarious would that have been?? If only George had thought of it.

Then the PT follows this up with officially the worst puns ever committed to film. "Oh this is such a drag". Drag, get it because R2 is dragging 3PO's head along. Get the double meaning?? & then "oh I'm quite beside myself". Beside myself, get it bcs 3PO's head is now beside his body!!

I like the PT but most of the "jokes" in Eps 1 & 2 are atrocious. You can say "they're aimed at young kids" but what's the point of that?? After they're past 8 years of age they're going to see them for the rubbish they are. The poop & fart jokes are actually appropriate bcs the humour across both movies just stank.

 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the OT actually does contain a fart joke. It's just that most people don't recognize it. It occurs in ROTJ.

Sarlacc, like a sea anemone, only possesses 1 orifice. As a consequence, its mouth is also its butt-hole, and so, whatever noises it makes with its orifice are both simultaneously farts and burps. (Or maybe the word "furp" might also be appropriate.)

See illustration below:



Come on guys! This is a Star Wars fan site! We should all know this!

 

I literally laughed out loud when I saw this is what you ended up going with.

Stinky garbage is stinky, LOL. *OT purists everywhere giggle and clap their hands in glee*

 

Nice one. Of course the problem with that is the sarlacc was "eating" Boba & the others, not shoving them up its ***.
& the sound effect was a burp rather than a fart.
& there's no canon source that confirms your "one orifice" theory. Maybe the sarlacc's *** was underground somewhere.

So I think we can close the case on that one. You can remain proud that poop & fart jokes are exclusive to the PT

 

I like the way you have -- somewhat -- interlinked those moments.

And the funniest part of Jar Jar's exclamation, in my opinion, is the way he necks back his drink with total insouciance, earning a puzzled (and kind of irked) look from Anakin.

Jar Jar basically ruins Anakin's moment.

I even LOLed typing it.

LOL moment #2! Me, too.

You do reasonably explicate some critical differences between the two.

The thing you're still left with, however, is that Star Wars likes to be a little grubby with its humour -- kind of literally on occasion.

Moreover, what you miss, in the Jar Jar example, is how the moment follows a somewhat sullen exchange between Qui-Gon and Padme. The poop-splatting moment is meant, on some level, to mock their unironic seriousness.

You can also see a commentary there on the environment that all three are heading into. Tatooine is not a clean place and presents dangers for people not minding their step. A more esoteric feature is that Jar Jar is aligned with fecality -- fitting his clown/trickster nature.

The puns are meant to be a bit trashy. Threepio has literally "lost his head" in the middle of a giant battle. I think they're fun in a ridiculous way. If Threepio were like that in every movie, it would either be divine or tedious in the extreme. But AOTC kind of presents a knowing exception.

You like the PT, but the humour stank, and you keep trashing the movies in every other post?

 

Seems you'll laugh at anything (even JarJar). Good for you, that's a positive attitude

Was merely a sarcastic quip from a sarcastic character. Not a brilliant setup joke like this: character walks towards turd on ground, character steps in turd (queue squelching turd sound), character recoils & shouts "icky icky goo!". Queue thigh slapping laughter. Lucas should've inserted a drumroll leading up to the turd squelch & then some canned studio audience laughter. Same for the farting eopie.

 

Here's one thing I find ironic about Jar Jar hate. We all know the sci-fi nerd stereotype -- sort of like the socially maladroit guys on "The Big Bang Theory." And certainly only a minority of big time Star Wars/Trek fan are like that and I'm definitely not pointing fingers at anyone here, but I think there is at least some truth to that stereotype. I personally know Star Wars fans who are like that.

Well, out of all the characters in the SW universe, who would I say most resembles this socially-maladroit stereotype? I'd have to say Jar Jar. In fact, he's sort of like a happy socially inept kid who loves SW before years of teasing and bullying in school turn him into an anxious angry neurotic adult. Yet who do most Star Wars fans hate most all: Jar Jar.

That seems sort of ironic to me.

 

They were talking about the traders, slaves & scavengers who live in Mos Espa. What a dark, heavy & dramatic conversation that was. What it really needed was a cheap turd joke to lighten the mood. I see your thinking there

I get it, stepping in crap wasn't a cheap gag for kids. It was a metaphor for the dangers our characters were about to face. It's cleverly telling the audience that if our heroes are not careful they may find themselves in an "icky icky goo" kind of situation. Brilliant. Maybe the eopie farting before the race was foreshadowing for Anakin's problems with his engine exhaust. These films are so layered.

Ah yes, we come to the classic "PT Defense 101". When something is bad it was meant to be bad. The puns are awful - they were meant to be awful. Hayden's acting was wooden - it was meant to be wooden. The romantic dialogue is vomit inducing - it was meant to be. These movies are bullet proof!

I like it but don't love it. I can list 100 things I like about them but I can also recognise their flaws rather than stubbornly refuse to acknowledge them.
& I've posted plenty of positives about them. Just none about the humour in eps 1 & 2.

 

We need a whole separate thread titled "The 'One Orifice' Theory: Will It Ever Be Canon?"

 

A user poll: Does the Sarlacc have a separate anus:

yes
no
other

 

Oh, for sure. I am convinced that Jar Jar elicits discomfit, not just classic disdain. And, for the largest part, it must surely be rooted in what an embarrassment these people feel he turned their object of geek affection into. Instead of finding acceptance and validation, their thing, which they root their identity in, is irrevocably tarnished (in their eyes), by the one creation that just happens to be the saga's archetypal misfit.

True, they were having a pretty neutral conversation. But an exchange takes place, ending with Padme's rather gloomy, "Like us". It's like the film is saying there is something slightly "off" about being down and despairing.

And it fits one of the key themes of the movie, beautifully articulated later on by Qui-Gon: "Your focus determines your reality." In a film in which both the good guys and the bad guys instruct each other to "be mindful" (and, again, Jar Jar mindlessly wanders into the deposit), I find it oddly apropos.

Or, more simply, it's just a random "world detail", sketching out the unkempt nature of Tatooine -- a frontier world, beyond the reach of the Republic -- suggesting both danger and possible salvation. In goo, one can find new solutions. Don't dismiss the goo!

The fart thing is because Jar Jar likes to constantly uncover food through the sense of smell. It emphasizes his animalism. In this instance, he comically gets undesirable food remnants cast his way, by a haughty Star Warsian camel. And it's also there to undercut the pretense of a flag parade (there are two flag parades in the movie involving "emperor" slugs/sultans).

Beyond all of that, it simply puts you on Jar Jar's level: a character-enhancing, humanizing moment. Jar Jar's momentary distraction is his own undoing. Many of the details in the film have the dualistic feature of being both random/aleatory and revelatory/allegorical. This poetic dualism is something most people fail to grasp.

Slow down, Speed Racer. Something being "trashy" does not equate to it being bad. Trashy is just trashy. There's even a trash compactor in the original film. Star Wars has a lot of trashy elements within it; it's the intermingling that makes it particularly vivid and even profound.

Saying the puns are "awful" is going too far in my book. I can think of really bad puns in movies. Threepio's remarks are not particularly urbane, but they're not intended to be. They're at least moderately witty to the situation at hand.

You also throw out context -- always a poor move. In this case, as I indicated, Threepio has been beheaded, and continues functioning in some altered "fugue" state. His language and reactions are appropriately shifted for this brief spell of mental chaos in his life.

Ultimately, what you don't get is that Star Wars is an existential comedy. How can a person actually be "beside" themselves? What is the sound of one hand clapping? And are droids even persons? To be or not to be.

And please, criticizing those other elements at leisure is so jejune. Hayden's acting is controlled, not wooden. The romantic dialogue is sweet and old-fashioned, not vomit-inducing. You say toe-may-tah, I say... prequels are awesome. But seriously, you try to ambush me with a sarcastic broadside, which shows you've already made up your mind and aren't here to learn anything.

Worse, you get into a semantic game over "love/like", which is just a lame smokescreen, given the sentiments you've expressed here. Liking something should not entail being smug and condescending to someone else who likes that thing -- unless you don't really like it as much as you have defensively claimed to.

Yeah, that must be it. I guess you're far more objective than blind fans that "stubbornly refuse" to align themselves with your views.

How can you like something you're always trashing? If I like a girl, I wouldn't seek to publicly defame her. If there's a band I'm into, I wouldn't go around turning my nose up at half their output and proclaiming that it's ****.

It seems, what you actually like, is having fun putting the movies down, and carping on fans that disagree with your virulent, ill-considered, mean-spirited views. Just my opinion, though.

 

No poetic dualism, just a fart joke.

You've overreached there. I post plenty of positives & plenty of negatives about Eps 1 & 2. In the case of Ep 3 almost all of my thoughts have been positive. In both cases this is well deserved. I think you'll find it's very much in line with broad opinion. Eps 1 & 2 are a mixture of good & bad & Ep 3 is mostly good.

Sorry for not being a paid up member of the PT Defenders Guild. Fortunately for more objective folks these forums aren't exclusively for apologists & sycophants.

 

HEre's an interesting comparison video between Jar Jar Binks adn Chewbacca. It also deconstructs our heroic vew of Chewie.

 

Garbage, worse comparison I've ever heard. That guy is an idiot. One character created widespread ridicule & annoyance, the other widespread affection.

Next he'll be saying Chewie was a racial stereotype against bears or the Sasquatch.